Non-franchise sequels you'd like to see


by Paul William Tenny

Supposedly movietickets.com polled 32,000 people about which non-franchise sequel they'd like to see made. I'm dubious of their methodology because first and foremost, they already admitted that it was an online poll which means it's already less than useless, but also because I can't find anything about this poll but blurbs. No breakouts, nothing about who conducted the poll and the restrictions like how many times a person could vote and what it took to vote like email or other types of verification that you're a unique individual.

In the words of Aldo Raines, we have a word for that around here. Suspicious.
Online polls are inherently garbage precisely because it's so difficult to maintain integrity. It's not difficult to appear as more than one person and skew the results, in fact it happens all the time. And as if it weren't bad enough that the poll results are of questionable integrity, the results are also of questionable value.

Nobody but us cares what sequel the fans want to see made, the studios are going to make whatever they think has the best shot at either winning them an Oscar, or making the most money. There isn't anything that's going to interfere with that, not even a bout of good common sense.

Alas, the top five results (as I said, I couldn't find the poll results themselves so I have no clue what the rest of the top 10 were) are not very inspiring.

1. The Hangover
The top non-franchise film that fans wanted to see a sequel made for was The Hangover. 37% of the vote -- a little less than 12,000 out of the 32,000 sample -- made it an easy winner over runner-up District 9. Considering that the movie "only" cost $35 million to make, but brought in $459 million worldwide, it's not a stretch to expect a follow-up sometime in 2011. Purely from an analytical view, not at all based on popularity, I would have given this movie the biggest chance at seeing a sequel based on its box-office success alone.

2. District 9
I've heard good things about this movie and anticipate seeing it on DVD soon, but there's really not a chance in hell it'll get a sequel. This was not a studio system film, which is to say there isn't a billion dollar company with bags of money laying around to take advantage of District's unlikely success. Unless one of the big studios wants to fund it, this is all you're going to get. 27% of those polled want a sequel though, and the studios would be smart to listen.

3. G. I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
A violent, action-filled brain dead popcorn flick voted third by 21% of those polled. It wasn't liked by critics and won't win any awards, but it made decent coin (if it hadn't cost so much to make it might have actually broke even at the box-office) and nothing excites studios more than brain dead action flicks that don't bankrupt them. I'm sure someone will do a sequel eventually, one that will lower our collective IQs and further push the human race towards extinction.

4. Watchmen
The number of people who voted for Watchmen (8%) is roughly how many people went to see the film in the first place. In other words it was a box-office failure. It cost $130 million to make but only made $185 million globally, which translates to $100 million for the studio(s) after the theater's take. That $100 million gets split into chunks between the domestic and foreign distributors, and doesn't account for marketing which usually runs tens of millions for movies like this. Nobody is going to think about touching that disaster for while. Forget about it.

5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Looked pretty funny and just barely lost out to Watchmen with 7% of the vote. That says a lot about both this list, and Watchmen. This movie was panned by critics but burned up the box-office, so that's always a nice screw you to them. $26 million budget and $227 million worldwide made it a big, if not unexpected success. Making a sequel should be a no-brainer but I haven't heard about any plans on this front.

How about you, how would your list look?
in Film, Internet

Tags:



    Related posts:



    Leave a comment



    View more stories by visiting the archives.

    Media Pundit categories